The First Light
by bugsfic
Summary: Two friends trying to find their way free from their pain.


_Spoilers through S4.7, but not in great detail._

* * *

Sleep ended with a frustrating thump, leaving Mary angrily staring at the plaster ceiling of her bedroom. Dawn was washing it a very pale blue. Nights were still the most difficult times, without the new stimulations that her days presented since she'd become involved with the estate's workings. She could only sleep when utterly exhausted and once she woke, remained caught in the net of her despair, like a fish that had lost its fight and only fluttered its gills as some auto-reflex.

Finally she rose, draped her wrap around her shoulders and wandered to the window. Might as well face the day, as dreary as that prospect appeared.

Two figures were coming up the long drive, one tall and wide, topped with a bowler, his uneven gait aided by a cane. The other was much shorter, with the curved figure of a lady, her delicate ankles clicking along to keep pace. Her arm was laced through his, one gloved hand under his forearm to keep warm, the other in her pocket. It was Anna and her husband Mr. Bates.

Overcome by relief, Mary sank to the window seat. The couple was coming from the direction of their cottage, headed to their daily duties. It would appear that Anna had moved home, and Mary was surprised how much this one fact released the tension in her limbs. Laying her head against the casing, her eyelids drifted shut—

Since Matthew's death, everyone had handled Mary as delicately as filigree glass which served only to make her feel more brittle and close to shattering. Only Anna had treated Mary as though she expected her lady to get up every morning, dress, and behave somewhat human. It may have been the only thing that kept Mary going for those first dark months.

But something was now terribly wrong for her Anna. For the first time since Anna and her husband had moved to their own small home, Mary observed her maid coming alone up the drive during her dawn watch. And when Anna had brought in Mary's breakfast, her face had been battered, but it was the deep bruises in her eyes that truly frightened Mary. Yet the maid would tell her nothing of her problems and Mary felt herself crumbling a bit more with each vague avoidance of her questions.

When they returned from a quick trip to London, matters got worse. With Mary's mother's maid gone in the night, Anna moved back to the attics, leaving Bates as a gloomy shadow hovering in the corners of the upper galleries, watching for his wife. Refusing to believe that he'd behaved brutally toward Anna, Mary had hoped it was just some brief tiff. But even after Baxter had been retained to care for Lady Grantham, Anna stayed on.

Frustrated, Mary questioned her: "Mama has got her own maid now. Why not go back to the cottage?"

Moving with painful slowness through her tasks, Anna wouldn't meet her gaze. "I haven't gotten 'round to it."

"Anna, if you're in difficulties, I wish you'd tell me."

"I'm not, m'lady. Honestly."

It had been in Mary's experience when someone said 'honestly' they were hiding the truth. Vexed, she could only dismiss Anna and brood.

The answer had to be that Anna didn't really believe Mary was strong after all. She had left the home for which she had struggled so long and the man she'd professed to love as no woman had loved another. And beyond that, she apparently didn't believe that Mary could deal with whatever agonies had driven her to these unbelievable acts. The knowledge had crushed Mary.

The couple paused below her window. She leaned forward to watch again.

Bates looked around, as if to check for observers and Mary eased behind the thick satin curtain. Once the two passed around the corner of the house, they would be in the territory of the staff. But they believed that none of their charges would be awake yet, let alone looking out their front windows into the brightening day.

They were chatting. The servants rarely talked among themselves while in their masters' presence, but since the day that Bates had come to the house to work for the Earl, he and Anna had always had their heads tipped together.

Still, Mary had been shocked when Anna had chosen Bates. What the maid, such a bright spirit, saw in the taciturn gentleman's gentleman had elluded Mary at the time. He had neither good looks nor vitality. He'd spoken barely two words to Mary the entire time he'd been at Downton, and it was rarely beyond dull pleasantries delivered in slow, careful tones. In this reflection, she dismissed her first exchange with him, when he'd made her feel foolish and not worthy of her status, snooping through servants' quarters like some hall boy looking for penny candy to steal. He was the sort of man with whom she could discuss her disgraceful episode pertaining to the Turk and Bates' villainous wife's use of that information for her blackmail and all Mary got out of him was the fewest words possible and the assurance that all was forgotten and no bother, m'lady.

While Mary had vigorously worked to keep her own sister away from an aged cripple, she understood that Anna had fewer opportunities. Besides, she trusted her maid's strong judgement over Edith's desperate grasp to be mistress of a home of her own. If a soul of a poet lay beneath the valet's serge suit, Mary would help Anna any way that she could, even if this appeal eluded her at the beginning.

Then Mary had attended the tenant farmers' annual harvest dance. The Abbey's nobility were expected to make an appearance, while the servants went to Aaron Brewster drafty barn for a rare evening of frivolity.

She had noticed Anna standing off against the wall, which was odd. Usually the young woman was on the floor for every dance, lively and laughing. But her glances kept going to a tall figure leaning on a cane by Carson. The two men were watching the revelers, one craggy set of features faintly disapproving, the other impassive face showing a bit of yearning.

The next time Mary looked Anna's way, Bates had joined her. Although she was smiling and her eyes were humor-filled, Mary noted that her maid was gripping the table behind her tightly enough to turn her knuckles white. Bates loomed over the small woman—Mary had given a sigh of discontent. She was so tall that half her eligible prospects had been immediately discounted, and she'd always had a bit of envy for Anna's tiny figure, so entrancing to men...As it obviously was now.

It was just a man and woman talking to the casual observer, but Mary was aware of the expectations of the society within the walls of Downton. It was not just the dining table chairs which were to have a prescribed distance between them. Anna and Bates were standing an inch too close and the draw between their bodies must overwhelming for Anna to hang onto that table so hard.

Bates leaned another fraction of an inch closer and his gaze fixed on Anna's mouth. In the brief instance, Mary had finally seen that Bates may be a quiet man, but he definitely had the power to stir a woman, and not only her heart.

Carson, as romantic as an old stump left among the rose bushes in the garden and always on the lookout for impropriety, had apparently noticed it as well. He marched past them, giving one of his deep rumbling throat clearings, heard even as far as Mary's observation spot.

Bates had turned his head slowly, reminding Mary of one of those great cats in the zoo, that when gazing through the bars still gave her the impression that she was the imprisoned one and he was free to leap if he wished.

He'd cast Anna one last quick smile, causing her to—of all things— simper. Mary had never seen her sensible, wise-beyond-her-years maid simper, and had found it utterly shocking.

Now Mary smiled at this vague memory.

On the drive below, Bates tugged one of his gloves loose and cupped Anna's cheek. Yes, he would want his bare skin against hers. His head dipped to the side to kiss her under her own hat, and their faces were obscured-one black bowler, one dark red bonnet, hiding their faces from Mary's view. His hand moved to cradle Anna's neck, drawing her closer as his thumb stroked that spot where the jaw met the ear—Mary could feel his caress, smell Matthew as though he were there with her, holding her just as closely.

To relive Matthew's last precious moments, Mary had acquired the ability to slow time incrementally. Now she shared this gift with Bates and Anna, so that their brief kiss may last them the full day. Their faces finally parted, returning one to two. Only Bates' tender smile reflected what had just transpired.

Rising, Mary turned away from the window and drifted back to her bed. She suddenly felt as though she could sleep a bit more before Anna came with her breakfast tray.

She was able to approximate the manner of someone who'd slept through the night when Anna arrived.

"You seem brighter lately," she observed of her maid. "Have things sorted themselves out?"

A pause, then, "Not quite, but it's better, yes."

Mary pushed a bit harder. "And you've moved back into the cottage."

She received nothing but the fact in return. "I have, m'lady."

"Well, you're obviously not going to tell me what it was about but I'm glad if it's resolved," Mary said airily to cover her irritation.

* * *

At last, Mary had the opportunity to test her perception that she was hardened to steel once more. The morning Lord Robert was to leave for America, Mrs. Hughes knocked and entered her bedroom.

The older woman appeared agitated. "May I speak to you, Lady Mary?"

When Mary looked into the somber features of the housekeeper, she knew that she was finally to hear what was wrong with her beloved friend.

"What is it, Mrs. Hughes?" And there wasn't a single quiver in her voice.

~ end


End file.
